CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

It’s rather amazing how quickly this year has gone by. The older I get, the quicker time seems to move. I remember when I was a child, and having to wait a few hours seemed like an unendurable eternity. Now quite the contrary. Vanessa and I were remarking that it seems like just a few days ago that we got on a plane in Manila and returned to Saudi. However the year is almost over. I have to write a midterm exam for my class.  Vanessa and The Bug leave for the Philippines in a month and 6 days. I leave in 2 months and 13 days.

I have been having some bad stomach problems. My current theory is that it’s nicotine from the Commit losenges I suck on all day long. I read on WebMD that nicotine is a cause of stomach trouble. So I have started rationing my Commit and this is good anyway, because they are a heavy burden on my budget.

So anyone with a desire to not give the phone company money should go out and get a wireless Skype phone. Not the kind you connect to the computer… these have all kinds of problems. You want the wireless kind that doesn’t require a computer. My little SMC Skype phone has a pleasing iPod-ish feel and the sound is crystal-clear. The sound is best with another VoIP user, and worst when calling a cell phone. However the sound is good even with a cell phone, and bandwidth is not an issue with this phone. Skype phones are the nightmare of all phone companies. Indeed they are illegal in Saudi.

So the Cheetahhhhhh got his Amazon shipment from the States. It was touch-and-go for a while because it was held up in customs for 2 days. Got a lot of DVDs, including the collected Emma Peel Megaset… ie the Avengers 1950s British spy series. I like old flicks and back then, spying was the real thing. Nowadays, if you want to spy, you intercept cell phone signals or watch everything through an infrared satellite. Takes all the fun out.

We also got a Skype phone, which we love. A real nice crystal clear signal and, of course, Skye is so nice and cheap. So I finally have my revenge against Saudi Telecom. Those bastards won’t be getting much more of the Cheetahhhhhhh’s hard-earned cash.

Check out http://www.ucyanbu.com/vb/showthread.php?t=585; in the last picture you can see my shiny head.

Item #1, Van has been quite busy with the Teggatz channel on YouTube. Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of upload limit, or perhaps some technical difficulties involving our wireless, but we can’t manage to upload the whole length of our longer clips. For example with my directorial debt, Holiday in Egypt, you only see 70% of the movie.

Item #2, we watched the Wicker Man with my old pal Nicky Cage. The flick is about this crazy group of women living on a remote island off the Washington coast. Apparently they are the descendents of the Salem witches. I’m not going to ruin the movie for you but suffice it to say, the movie freaked me out. I woke up this morning thinking about poor Nicky Cage’s fate. What’s freaky is that Vanessa says there are villages of witches in the Philippines and that the plot of The Wicker Man is a common plot in Filipino movies. And I already know that there are a couple of witches in Capoocan and a haunted tree in front of the house I’m buying (where elves and dwarves live), and Vanessa has claimed to see White Ladies (ie ghosts) walking around in Capoocan. So now I am afraid to go. Well I’m joking. The Cheetahhhhhhh is a scientist and doesn’t acknowledge the existence of paranormal phenomena. And if paranormal phenomena does exist, then their extent of control over the material world is clearly through fear, so it’s best simply to ignore them. But the Wicker Man did freak me out. Good flick.

Vanessa said don’t mention that about witches, my family will be afriad to come to Capoocan. I said no, indeed, my mom will probably get all excited about it. Also Vanessa’s gradmother knows how to prevent witch attacks.

Item #3, the Bug had some scaly dry skin and we took him to the RC hospital. Apparenly he has an allergy. We got some lotion to cure him. Van thinks he caught it in the frack-a-lackin dirty water of Egypt. Van wants me to note that she was right, I said it was just dry skin and put some lotion on it fer chrissake.

Item #4 Saudi Telecom has 3.5G now though the benefits currently elude me. One thing, you can watch TV now on your phone, but that’s crazy and completely unnecessary. You can also do video calls with 3.5G, however, I seem to be the only person on earth with a videophone.

Item #5 some new Bug pics:

Checking my Friendster.

Chatting with Paris Hilton.

My new sleeping position.

Texting with Nanay.

Check out my directorial debut, our Holiday in Egypt video on YouTube

So I recounted how Missy, my Honda who is only 6 months old, had a rather rough weekend in Jeddah. First the Cheetahhhhhhhh accidentally scraped her fender, and then we went through a sandstorm and she got a coat of paint stripped clean off.

Poor Missy’s trials continue. Today a colleague needed to take his wife to the hospital and asked to borrow Missy. I gave him the keys. When he returned she had a big scrape on the rear fender. He was very apologetic and I have gotten quite stoic about Missy’s paint job, so I didn’t get angry or anything.

Missy’s trials are just getting pushed deep into a dark corner of my mind where I won’t consciously ponder all her dings and scratches.

Vanessa wants me to mention that The Bug now wants to try all our foods. I might have got him stared on this… I gave him a little bit of Orangina. Now he watches us eat and drink and makes lots of noise if we don’t let him taste.

So we had a nice day in Jeddah. Just got back, and might I note, we drove through one hell of a sandstorm. Reduced our fuel efficiency in half, though considering gas is about $.25 a liter, this is not a huge concern. The sandstorm did scrape off a layer of paint from little ol’ Missy, my 6 month old Honda. Poor Missy, she also had a little incident in Jeddah, got her fender scraped. Unfortunately this was the Cheetahhhhhhh’s fault. I can touch it up with a paint pencil but I’m still a bit sad about it.

Item #1 in Jeddah we discovered actual fine dining. Fancy that. There’s no fine dining in Yanbu and it took us a long time to find a good restaurant in Jeddah. It’s called Bamboo and they serve lobster. It’s fancy there, including an indoor koi pond with a waterfall. The lobster was good, though it was frozen ie not fresh off the Red Sea.

We stayed at Vanessa and The Bug’s favorite hotel, the Meridian. As you can see here, The Bug is a UCB baby (United Colours of Benetton):

Item #2, The Bug seems to be saying “daddy” though as a linguist, I am skeptical of his comprehension of the word. Van is jealous, but we all know The Bug is a daddy’s boy.

Item #3, Blackberries have arrived in Saudi, though I have to wait a month or two before they start selling them to individuals. I have been waiting for several years for a Blackberry and am pleased as punch.

There are a lot of blogs out there that introduce meaningful content, such as lifehacker.com or iwillteachyoutoberich.com and then there are blogs that give us sarcasm or comedy or travelogue. Sometimes I feel the urge to introduce a blog with meaningful content, but you know, the aim of the CheetahhhhhhBlogIII is actually a lot of effort, despite the fact that my intended audience is less than a dozen people. It takes a lot of effort to keep up with family and friends when you’re smack-dab in the middle of the Arabian desert. And you may not realize it, but an itinerant expat such as the Cheetahhhhhhh only sees family once or twice a year. And when an expat makes friends in one country, and then moves to another job in another country, it is realistic to assume he will never see his friends from country #1 ever again. A sad but true price you pay for being an expat. So in sum, the CheetahhhhhhBlog’s aims are a big kettle of fish.

“A big kettle of fish” is a paraphrase of James Joyce’s Finnigan’s Wake, for those of you wondering where you heard that before.

So anyhoo, Islam forbids interest. The banks here do charge interest, but it’s very low, and it’s per annum. You can borrow from Saudi British Bank at 4.5% per annum. Now, you can take what you borrow and put it into an offshore savings account like HSBC’s Online Saver account at 5.7% compounded daily on British sterling or the US dollar, and you can get even better rates of return with less-than-hard currencies like the South African rand (8-9%). There are some factors to consider, like most banks charge around 2% to convert currency like dirty snakes in the grass. There is also the issue of currency fluctuation, which is eliminated with the US dollar, given that the Saudi riyal is pegged to the dollar. There is also the issue of currency-based inflation. What is the US dollar’s rate of inflation at these days, 3-4%? I’m not sure. And the example I site here is merely a savings account, not more productive (though less secure) modes of investment. Anyway in short the concept of making productive use of Saudi low interest rates does intrigue the Cheetahhhhhhh.

Well we’re heading off to Jeddah at about 230 or 3 this afternoon. We’re getting some Filipino foods, some pesto at Carrefour, Victoria’s Secret lotion for Vanessa, and a few other things that simply aren’t available in Yanbu. Also we aim to go to a lobster restaurant tonight if The Bug will cooperate.

My mom and sister are all into lifehacker.com and it’s an OK website, it’s true. Here the Cheetahhhhhhh offers his own short list of software that’s actually useful:

1. Google browser synch for Firefox. This is actually useful because you will have the same bookmarks, cookies, and passwords on any Firefox you use with the google synch plugin. You will never lose bookmarks again and every Firefox browser is like yours at home.
2.  Yahoo Go: Now your phone presumably synchs with Microsoft Outlook. Yahoo Go synchs your phone with Yahoo’s contacts and calendar. You will never lose data again.
3. Microsoft Reader: once you try ebooks, you’ll wonder why it took you so long. Worthy of notice for being Microsoft’s only piece of well-designed software. Yep, it doesn’t crash or make you crazy and it’s from Microsoft. Fancy that!

That’s it… I don’t actually think there’s a hell of a lot of truly useful software out there. For example. IE10 and MSOffice2007 crash all frakkin day long. MS Money is counter-intuitive and byzantine. Etcetera.